The Fur Coat
by Barbacar
Summary: Peach receives a gift in the mail from a relative.


Princess Peach awoke in her bed to the sound of her doorbell ringing throughout her entire castle. She quickly got dressed and headed downstairs to the castle's front door. Opening the door, she saw Parakarry fluttering in place in front of her.

"Good morning, Princess Toadstool. I've come to inform you that there's a package waiting at the post office for you." said Parakarry.

"Okay, thanks for letting me know, I'll pick it up soon." said Peach, waving to Parakarry as he flew away. Closing the door, she headed up the stairs of her castle, up various floors and through various rooms, including a kitchen, her bedroom, an observatory, and a room full of explosives.

Eventually, she got to the roof, where a giant pink and purple cannon stood. Striking a match off of the cannon's barrel, she lit the fuse before climbing inside. She took out her parasol and waited for the fuse to go down. She had gotten rather accustomed to doing this since she had the cannon installed a couple months ago.

With a thundering blast, Peach was fired out into the sky. She waited until she was flying across the town before opening her parasol, causing her to slowly float towards the ground. As she stepped onto the ground, a few toads looked at her in mild bewilderment, mostly due to her choice of entrance. Others were more used to the princess landing in town like this.

Peach closed her parasol before heading towards the post office. She passed by a couple toad kids playing hot bob-omb, smiling as she remembered the times she played that game, even if it did often result in her castle getting blown to bits.

Arriving at the post office, Peach stepped inside the rather rustic looking building will wooden walls and furniture. An old paratroopa was behind the front desk, and he waved to Peach as she entered. "Morning, Miss Toadstool. A package arrived for you a couple hours ago. Would you happen to know an 'Auntie Apricot', by any chance?"

"Yeah, she lives on a farm a few miles from the kingdom." said Peach.

The Postmaster said "The package from her is addressed to 'Peachy', and I just sort of assumed that was referring to you."

"Yeah. That's what she always called me."

The Post Master heaved a fairly large wooden crate over the desk and set it down in front of Peach. "It was covered in mud when it got here, but we were able to clean most of it off."

Peach grabbed the crate and managed to lift it up with some difficulty. She carried it out of the post office, setting it down by the park bench in front of the building. She took a closer look at the crate. It had a few stamps on it and it smelled like pumpkins and mud.

Peach pried open the top of the crate and looked inside. There were a few knick-knacks, such as an old kaliedoscope, a rusty trowel, and a jar of old candies. The item that took up most of the space in the crate, however, was a large home-made coat covered in patches of fur from countless different animals. Peach looked at it with confusion.

There were some drops of glue still stuck to the coat, and there were also some feathers haphazardly attached to the coat at various points. Peach held the coat up and inspected it closely. It was about the right size for her, and in one of the pockets was a letter.

It read:

"Dear Peachy,

How's life as a princess been going for you? Life on the farm's been going pretty well for me. A few of the sleepy sheep are staying up all night for some reason, and some of the Piranha plants keep trying to eat me, though. Hope you enjoy the gifts, especially that fur coat. It was made with lots of love! And also feathers, leaves, pipe cleaners, a couple of somewhat shiny rocks I found by the side of the lake. You know, the one with the creaky old dock and every time you step on it you think maybe it's going to break or something but then again it's been there for well over fifty years with no repairs and it still holds up pretty well but you're still sort of worried when you're on it? You know the one.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this coat I made.

Love, Auntie Apricot."

Peach placed the letter back in the coat's pocket and took another look at the coat. It was a nice gift, but it was really rather unsightly and slapdash.

"Hey, where'd you get that fur coat?"

Peach looked up to see Princess Daisy standing in front of her. "Yeah, why do you ask?"

"Looks pretty neat, is all." said Daisy, walking up and looking at the coat.

"You sure?" said Peach. "My aunt gave it to me. She always makes these kinds of things out of fur. She doesn't like to hurt her animals, though, so she just uses shedding she found from the barn floor."

Daisy said. "I guess that explains why most of the fur is in different colours, textures, length..."

Peach sighed and said "That's sort of what she's always like, and what her family has been like for generations. She barely throws anything away and always keeps everything that may be useful, albeit not to an unhealthy extent so far. And with all that stuff she has laying around, she's always making stuff like this coat."

"Huh." said Daisy. "You know, maybe you should try it on.

"Do you think so?" asked Peach. "It doesn't really fit with my image of a regal princess."

"Maybe not." said Daisy. "But maybe your aunt is right about a few things. Maybe it is good to appeciate some of the simpler things in life."

Peach thought about it for a moment and said "You know, I guess I will try it on." Standing up, she put the large fur coat on over her dress. When she was finished, she looked over herself quickly.

"Hmm, it's still a little disjointed looking, but it's honestly not that bad. Not sure if this is the right climate to wear it in, though." said Peach.

"I know a snowy place up north that should be really good for coat weather." said Daisy.

"Will getting there involve being fired out of a cannon?" asked Peach.

"You know it." said Daisy, as the two headed off towards their destination.


End file.
